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And again: the multiple must be always seeking its identity,
desiring self-accord and self-awareness: but what scope is there
within what is an absolute unity in which to move towards its
identity or at what term may it hope for self-knowing? It holds
its identity in its very essence and is above consciousness and
all intellective act. Intellection is not a primal either in the
fact of being or in the value of being; it is secondary and
derived: for there exists The Good; and this moves towards itself
while its sequent is moved and by that movement has its
characteristic vision. The intellective act may be defined as a
movement towards The Good in some being that aspires towards it;
the effort produces the fact; the two are coincident; to see is
to have desired to see: hence again the Authentic Good has no
need of intellection since itself and nothing else is its good.
The intellective act is a movement towards the unmoved Good: thus
the self-intellection in all save the Absolute Good is the
working of the imaged Good within them: the intellectual
principle recognises the likeness, sees itself as a good to
itself, an object of attraction: it grasps at that manifestation
of The Good and, in holding that, holds self-vision: if the state
of goodness is constant, it remains constantly self-attractive
and self-intellective. The self-intellection is not deliberate:
it sees itself as an incident in its contemplation of The Good;
for it sees itself in virtue of its Act; and, in all that exists,
the Act is towards The Good.
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